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Cyber

While infocentric nations and military forces focus on the threat to their systems from malware-wielding cyber attackers, a significant danger to cyberspace may come from outer space in the form of kinetic weapons that attack vital satellites.

While the Navy is working with the other services and the U.S. Cyber Command to protect and defend its networks, it also is shaping its own cyberforce to deal with digital challenges outside of its normal purview.

The Twitter and YouTube accounts for the U.S. Central Command, the Defense Department branch responsible for operations in the Middle East and Afghanistan, were hacked by sympathizers of the Islamic State militant group, prompting U.S. officials to suspend the accounts and launch yet another round of investigations into a cybersecurity breach.

U.S. Marines are testing skill sets integrated with technology in an effort to succeed in a combined conventional warfare/cyber warfare setting, employing devices such as integrated head-mounted displays and sensors on the battlefield and avoiding information overload.

While terrorists can inflict individual points of damage to the U.S. homeland, cyberspace attacks hold the greatest potential for inflicting devastating damage that could change the nature of the nation.

Security experts must have full network awareness in real time if they are to thwart the growing cyberspace threat. Programs such as the joint regional security stacks (JRSS) may hold the key to securing networks against dominance by cybermarauders.

The U.S. Cyber Command's Cyber Mission Force is generating teams and assigning them to combatant commands, but they are still in the learning phase for their missions. Half the teams will focus on defense, and the other half will focus on initiating activities.

Success for the Joint Information Environment may come down to the Joint Regional Security Stacks (JRSS), says the Defense Department's acting CIO. However, their success may hinge on acquisition reform.

Koniag Information Security Services LLC, Chantilly, Virginia, has been awarded a ceiling $6,767,577 modification (P00005) exercising the first option period on a one-year base contract (HR0011-14-C-0048), with four one-year option periods for contractor support services for the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) Security and Intelligence Directorate (SID). The modification brings the total cumulative face value of the contract to $13,481,154 from $6,713,577.

For the U.S. Defense Department, the Internet of Things means that everything—battlefield uniforms, office thermostats and major weapon systems, for example—are networked, providing tremendous amounts of data for situational awareness while also preventing challenges for cybersecurity and data storage and analysis.

The Internet of Things, the latest iteration of the overarching dream of an omnipresent network architecture, offers an uncertain future in both opportunities and challenges. That uncertainty is growing as the network concept itself expands in scope and reach.

Northrop Grumman officials say they are developing a new kind of cyber system—a disposable system tailored for a single mission. The concept, they say, will make it more difficult for adversaries to penetrate or maneuver inside user networks.

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